Mike Wolfberg's 737-Point Game

June 21, 2007 - Lexington, MA Scrabble® Club #108

Mike scored 508 in his first moves, having bingoed
with a double-double, a triple-triple, and two others.
Later in the game, he unfortunately missed playing another
triple-triple with two opportunities. He also accepted a word
which he knew was a phony. The excessive room noise affected
his focus at that point in the game, and he was getting low on time.
Despite that, getting
over 700 is a rare achievement, but it is disappointing to
realize the score could have been over 800. The first missed
triple-triple was PECTORAl
at 1A which would have scored
149; instead he bingoed for 83 a turn later. Mike did find
POsTRACE, which also would have worked
and decided against it. PORTAnCE also
fits. But even on his next turn, when he bingoed with
OREIDEs, he could have played the
triple-triple LOITEREd.

Mike's opponent in this game was Jamie Ryan, who was ranked second in
the strong Lexington Club at the time. Jamie began the game with 3 trades
of all his letters due to horrible racks. Later, he opened and kept the board
open in an attempt to recover and catch up. This enabled Mike to take
advantage of his better racks and add to his already-high score.
The total score for this game was 1077, the second-highest total achieved
at the Lexington Club in its 27-year existence.

This is the third time Mike exceeded 700 points in a game.
His previous record was a
709-point game at the Lexington Club on
4-Nov-92. In that game, two of Mike's four bingos were non-challenged
phonies. Mike played a
701-point game on 8-Jul-90 in which he played no
phonies, but he let his opponent play one. The same is true of this
game.